First Philippine Holdings Corporation : First Holdings' Unit Transfers 30 Million Meralco Shares To Beacon Holdings

First Philippine Holdings Corp. (FPH.PH) said one of its wholly owned subsidiaries completed Tuesday transfer of 2.66% of Manila Electric Co. (MER.PH), or Meralco, to Beacon Electric Asset Holdings Inc.

Beacon has now solidified its hold on the country's largest power distributor by sales. The additional shares increase Beacon's stake in the power distributor to 48.02%. Beacon is part of Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPI.PH).

First Philippine Utilities Corp. sold 30 million shares of Meralco to Beacon for PHP295 each, or a total PHP8.85 billion.

First Holdings said together with unit First Utilities it now owns around 3.9% of Meralco.

-By Cris Larano, Dow Jones Newswires; 632-848-5051; cris.larano@dowjones.com